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Microsoft has revealed that it's been developing an underwater data centre, under the codename Project Natick (New York Times). Named the 'Leona Philpot' after a character in Halo, the prototype data centre was put into position off the Californian coast in August 2015. Keeping data centres underwater provides an easy solution to the high cost of cooling server farms, and would also allow them to be positioned nearer to users, reducing latency. The prototype was so successful that the team was able to run commercial data-processing projects for the Azure Cloud on it. The next step will involve an energy system that will use ocean currents to generate power for the data centre.

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Vertical farms have nailed leafy greens. Next up: tasty peaches

The Guardian has revealed that Google has been testing solar-powered drones as a means of delivering airborne high-speed 5G mobile broadband, 40 times faster than current 4G/LTE standards. Codenamed SkyBender, the secretive project is based in a former Virgin Galactic hangar at Spaceport America in New Mexico, and has a dedicated flight control centre at the nearby Spaceflight Operations Centre. SkyBender is part of the Google Access team's project brief, alongside the balloon-powered Project Loon.

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The European Space Agency has successfully launched the European Data Relay System (ERDS) telecommunications satellite, allowing data to be beamed back to Earth at a rate of up to 1.8Gbps (BBC). It can also accept transmissions from other satellites, meaning that critical Earth observation data can be set back in near-real-time during disasters such as floods and earthquakes. The ERDS network is due to become fully operational in 2020, with a second comms satellite due for launch in 2017 and the European Commission as its first customer. The EC has commissioned a series of satellites called Sentinels to produce maps and data that will help to form European policy.

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From boats to football stadiums, this is how you weave at scale

ByEleanor Peake

Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have won a design competition to develop a pod that will run on Elon Musk's Hyperloop test track (The Verge). A total of 22 teams will be given an opportunity to build and test their pod designs on the track, currently under construction near SpaceX's headquarters in California. Hyperloop pods are capsules that will travel inside a reduced-pressure tube at speeds of up to 1,223kmh.

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European and American negotiators have failed to reach a deal on how data transferred between the two regions should be handled (New York Times). The negotiations follow the collapse of the Safe Harbor framework, which was supposed to extend European Data Protection law to US-based service providers, but was found to have been repeatedly breached by US government surveillance practices. Having missed their Sunday deadline, set by European privacy agencies, the negotiators are still striving to reach a deal before European regulators act on Wednesday, with threats of legal action hanging over the process. The results of the negotiations have critical implications for international businesses and service providers such as Microsoft and Google.

Samsung has confirmed that it will be launching the new Galaxy S7 on Sunday, 21 February in Barcelona, just ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show (VentureBeat). A teaser video also implies that the event will include more developments for Samsung's Gear VR virtual reality headset, or at least give Gear VR users the opportunity to watch the livestream in virtual reality. The confirmation followed the publication of S7 promotional images that included the date of the event.

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Reuters is taking a big gamble on AI-supported journalism

Scientists have reported an error in the initial analysis of the DNA of Mota man, who, at 4,500 years old, represents the oldest African genome to be sequenced (Science). A software error made Mota man's DNA seem less closely related to modern European populations than he really was, which in turn led to the initial paper's conclusions that modern African populations obtained a significant part of their genetic ancestry from later Eurasian back-migration. Pontus Skoglund, of Harvard Medical School in the USA, uncovered the error, and says that "almost all of us agree there was some back-to-Africa gene flow, and it was a pretty big migration into East Africa, but it did not reach West and Central Africa, at least not in a detectable way."

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has released a huge collection of high definition, true colour photos of the Moon's surface (TechCrunch). Taken by cameras on the Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover in 2013 and 2014 , they provide a uniquely natural view of the Moon's terrain. The process of registering to see the photos on the CNSA website is fiddly, but highlights have been uploaded to a registration-free site by Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society.

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What is GDPR? The need-to-know guide

ByMatt Burgess

Bill Gates was this weekend's guest on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young, speaking about topics from Microsoft's anti-competitive business practices, to his friendship with Steve Jobs and his recent philanthropic work (Ars Technica UK). His music choices included U2, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Ed Sheeran, while his luxury item, once denied an internet connection, was "a whole bunch of DVDs of all the world's great lectures". A transcript of the interview is also available.

The Museum of Science Fiction has launched the first volume of its scholarly Journal of Science Fiction, and it's available to download for free (io9). Content includes in-depth articles on Dune, the role of Hindu gods in Indian SF and informed takes on sci-fi ideas from global dystopias to alien lovers.

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From Improbable to Zoopla, how LocalGlobe makes top investments

ByMatt Burgess

The UK's planned surveillance law is "unambiguous", "confusing" and will cause disadvantages for technology companies in the country, according to a group of MPs looking at its implications. Members of the science and technology committee raised a number issues with the Investigatory Powers Bill (IP Bill) which has been proposed by the Home Office, after it reviewed how the bill would work technically. MP Nicola Blackwood, the chair of the committee, said it had concerns with the cost of the law, encryption, hacking and the impact on businesses.

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